The other day I got the castings for the coupler pocket and the ( do not know the proper term for it ) "coupler shank support" as they were mounted on NCNG#1's pilot after introduction of automatic couplers.

While thinking about the next steps integrating them in one of Jay Criswell's magnificent angle iron pilot catings, I figured out that I have no information about the type of pilot deck used on #1.Spent some hours studying the few pictures and drawings I have on hand, but can not clearly determine if there was a "curved" (as on the "Sonoma") or a "straight" one, as on the IHM-Kodama 4-4-0.

May one of you experts on this forum, provide helpful information?

Below you find some pics of the already mentioned castings. They were made as "direct-castings", means the wax models were directly printed off a .step-file provided by me. I am very pleased with the result, though the folks of the casting company had doubts about it. Their main concern was the stability of the wax model for the "coupler shank support". Therefore I added some reinforcing ribs that I have to remove on the brass castings.

If anyone is interested in these castings, I am willing to share the .step/.stl-file for further use by a casting company of your choice.

I am fairly certain that it is curved, as I think the curved deck is only used on the angle pilots.The straight deck should be for wooden pilots. The Kodama 4-4-0 is based on the 8-18C drawing 2 locomotive which was used in Colorado, out west we saw the drawing 4 locomotives (Sonoma, Eureka, etc).

I am building NCNG #2 and picked up one of Jay's iron pilots, forgetting that I needed wood (per the spec). Now I have to decide on a second locomotive to build.

Andrew,that is a very interesting point of view on this problem. Never thought about a possible relation of type of pilot to the style of deck used. Designwise, it makes sense to me, joining a curved deck with the slightly curved bars of the angle iron pilot. On the other hand, I am somewhat confused about the arrangement on "Glenbrook" where they built an angle iron pilot to be attached to a straight deck. But maybe Baldwin had a different design-policy for the 2-6-0's

However, I just checked the spec. sheet of #1 in the archives, but it does not say anything about deck style.

I am not in a rush to build up the pilot for #1,so I will try to get more Information about.